


milk and honey

by storytellingape



Series: sweet darlin', come hold me [2]
Category: Crash Pad (2017), Logan Lucky (2017), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 18th Century, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, Anachronisms, Anal Sex, Gender Roles, Historical Inaccuracy, Impregnation, Kylux Adjacent Ship, M/M, Mail Order Brides, Roman Catholicism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 07:16:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14327352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storytellingape/pseuds/storytellingape
Summary: In both marriage and war you must cut up the things people say like a cake and eat only what you can stomach. Sequel to "Like A River Runs".





	milk and honey

**Author's Note:**

> There will be more parts, soon, soon. I wanted this to be a multi-chaptered series, illustrating little bits of their lives while they navigate the choppy ~seas~ of marriage. Summary is borrowed from _Deathless_ by Catherynne M. Valente. 
> 
> Say [hello on twitter](https://twitter.com/softgingertwink)!

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The sound wakes him: a soft trill at the window, the noise of morning birds. Sunlight spills in through the curtains as Stensland lies there in bed, trying to pull his thoughts in order, enough to remember where he is, even after a whole year. 

Then the bed moves gently, creaking under the movement of Clyde’s body as Clyde rolls over onto his side and faces the opposite wall, his back broad under his nightshirt, stretching the fabric taut.

“I think I had a dream,” Stensland says.

*

Stensland makes breakfast. Afterwards, when Clyde leaves for the farm, he sits in the den and does nothing. Nothing takes time, and makes him bored and listless. Nothing makes him think, and think, and think himself into a mild misery. Stensland can’t read, but he likes to tip the few books in the study out of their dusty hiding places and feel the thin pages rustle under his fingertips, the sturdy heft of them in his hands. 

Some of the books have pictures, a plant, a bird, beautiful landscapes, though most of them don’t, and it’s these ones that Stensland usually leaves well alone. He makes the bed, running his hands through the rumpled covers and smoothing over the wrinkles; he arranges the shelves, the various bric-a-brac Clyde has accumulated over the years, the vases and jars and the lace doilies that have been in his family for centuries, the water-spotted mirror in the hall passed down to him just as the house had been. 

Time passes like a slow wave waiting to crest. 

Stensland feels as if he’s hovering on a precipice, holding his breath for something uncertain and unknowable, always on his toes. This is his life now, he thinks, as he waits for Clyde to come home, watching the sky outside turn a dull lifeless grey. _This is his life._ Every night, lying quietly on his side of the bed, waiting and waiting: for Clyde to look at him, for Clyde to seek him out, in the dark, and want him the way all husbands want their brides; for a kiss Stensland knows is never coming, Clyde’s mouth in a place between his thighs, making him come as hard as he’d made him come the only other time he’d touched Stensland after their wedding night, when Stensland had plied him with alcohol and climbed onto his lap and demanded to be taken to bed.

Stensland gets wet, thinking of that night, the deft way Clyde had moved on top of him, and stirred him up with his cock, pinning his knees back against the bed until they rubbed the covers raw. His thighs had ached afterwards, his hole stretched and sore. He thought for sure that he’d be pregnant after, that something would take; Clyde had come inside him twice, after all, the first time, taking the two of them by surprise, and then later again after fucking Stensland sweet and slow, letting him feel every inch.

That had been months ago, and Clyde hasn’t touched him ever since, except to kiss him perfunctorily every night before bed — on the temple, not even on the lips.   

But this is his life now, Stensland thinks. His house, his husband. His long empty hallway, with doors like eyes that peer into nothing. He wonders if the waiting will ever cease. 

*

“It’s my birthday,” Stensland says, one day, at breakfast. 

Clyde pauses, slamming the newspaper closed. Stensland doesn’t look at him because he’s feeling petulant. His heat is probably due soon; he’s stopped keeping track of his cycles because really, what’s the point. They’ve been married close to a year, and Clyde has yet to impregnate him. He knows this is unusual. Omegas are often pregnant after the first month of marriage but maybe he’s an outlier. Maybe there’s something wrong with him, and he’s defective, a broken toy Clyde will discard after once the truth comes to light.  

“You should’ve told me sooner,” Clyde says. He’s frowning, two lines creasing his forehead. He’s handsome, still, and this is why sometimes Stensland resents him. He has long hair up to his shoulders, and his hands are big. Or would have been, if he’d not lost the other in an accident in the mines; now he has just the one.

Stensland shrugs, pushing food around in his plate with his fork, the tines scraping the porcelain. “You were busy,” he says. _You always ar_ e, he doesn’t say, though the urge to provoke Clyde is strong, making his knee jittery under the table. 

Clyde takes him to town afterwards, where he buys Stensland clothes he doesn’t need and flowers for all the vases in the house as if Stensland would remember to water them. He probably would, in the end, because there’s nothing else to do. On a whim, Stensland buys little pouches of seeds, of plants he’s told would thrive well even with hardly any tending: sweet peas, marigolds, radishes, cauliflowers. His bags are heavy in each arm when they walk back to the waiting car. 

Clyde had insisted on helping him carry his shopping, but Stensland had refused any means of help, wanting to do this for himself. They gather looks meanwhile, and Clyde’s jaw is clenched all the way home.

They eat a tarty cake after dinner; there’s fruit in it and it’s good, the taste something Stensland has not had before. 

Because it’s Stensland’s birthday, Clyde clears the table, does the dishes. He has a smoke on the porch right after because he thinks Stensland doesn’t know that he does this sometimes after a meal, as if Stensland is an idiot who can’t smell it on his breath, or his clothes at night before they go to sleep. Stensland runs himself a bath, one of the small luxuries this new life has afforded him. When he emerges, his skin feels newly smooth from bath oils, sweet-smelling and soft. He dries himself with a towel before slipping into a robe, fastening it halfheartedly.

Clyde is in bed with his hand on top of the covers, his other arm kept hidden. He flits a quick glance at Stensland, sitting up. “Stensland,” he says, surprised.

Of course he’s surprised: Stensland isn’t dressed for bed. The robe is loose enough to be revealing: a pale thigh, the shadow of a nipple, a slant of shoulder. 

“Well,” Stensland says, and shrugs the robe off completely. It puddles under his feet. He steps out of it, curling his toes into the hardwood floor, shivering. “It’s my birthday,” he reminds Clyde.  Then: “I’m wet.”

“Yes,” Clyde agrees. He licks his bottom lip. “I can smell you,” he says. Which means he’d smelled Stensland those other times too, when he’d been slick and needy and aching for his touch. And what had he done then? Nothing. He had slept.

Stensland moves towards the bed, peeling back the covers to situate himself on top of Clyde, straddling his clothed lap. He leaves a damp patch of slick on Clyde’s trousers, the spot darkening the wetter he becomes as he rubs his aching hole against the friction. But he keeps his hands and gaze steady as he pushes Clyde onto his back, leaning over him and cupping his face. “I want,” he says. “I want to — to mate.” He cups Clyde’s face. “Do you understand? I want to mate.”

Clyde stares at him, understanding dawning in his eyes. 

Stensland starts unfastening the ties of Clyde’s trousers, but Clyde aborts the movement by stilling his wrist. “Let me,” he says, and does everything himself, kicking off his trousers and underwear before pulling his shirt over his head. He leaves them in a pile on the floor before taking Stensland by the waist and hauling him forward, searching his eyes before kissing him softly, gently, devoid of tongue as if Stensland isn’t already hungrily breathing in his scent and pressing his stiff little prick against Clyde’s stomach, riding his thigh in jerky little increments. 

Clyde attempts to roll them over so he could fuck Stensland on his back — his preferred position of fucking, which Stensland had joked once was very Catholic much to Clyde’s confusion — but Stensland shakes his head and says, “No. Not like that.” He nudges Clyde on his back when confusion slides into his face.

“Like this,” he tells Clyde, and then shows him how he likes it. He spreads his thighs across Clyde’s lap then takes hold of Clyde’s leaking cock, guiding the head inside him before resting his weight forward on his palms, easing his hips down. The first slide is always so difficult, because of the sheer girth and length of Clyde’s cock. It hurts, like it usually does, but only for a few moments, and Stensland won’t prefer it any other way, wanting to savor the slow and inexorable stretch of Clyde’s cock pushing its way inside.  

Stensland trembles once Clyde is fully seated, glancing up at him when a big hand closes over his waist. A thumb strokes over his hipbone, making him shiver, the entire length of him, from his scalp to his toes. The first time they had lain together, Stensland had been prepared to be humiliated, hurt. But he remembers every time how Clyde had made it good for him and sweet, how he held Stensland’s hip with a stuttering hand, careful not to break him. 

“Does it hurt,” Clyde asks.

Stensland shakes his head, only half lying. He needs to work on telling the truth, even when it’s inconvenient, maybe especially then. Whenever Clyde asks him what’s wrong, he smiles and says nothing, nothing is wrong. And whenever Clyde kisses him before bed, he pretends he doesn’t want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him roughly. He avoids conflict at all costs and now it’s come to this: the two of them hardly talking, spending days together in silence, traipsing around each other as if they’re avoiding land mines. 

Stensland doesn’t know which is worse, most days, his old life back in Ireland where he was in constant threat of being sold off to the next suitor, or his life here in Boone County, West Virginia where he does nothing and says nothing and waits and waits. 

Everything is at a standstill. It’s not Clyde’s fault, is the thing, it’s Stensland’s too, because he’s afraid. He doesn’t want to be sent back home for a wrongdoing. He wants to be perfect, for Clyde, like a doll.

Stensland moves, and Clyde’s whole body shudders like an earthquake.  Stensland takes his cock in deep pulls, as his own bobs, flushed at the head, neglected and heavy. He wants to come from just this. He’d done it only once; he thinks he can do it again, riding Clyde’s cock, feeling so full. 

“Touch me,” Stensland breathes. He tugs Clyde’s hand over his chest. “Here. Kiss me here — I want your, your mouth.”

Half of Clyde’s mouth twitches up into a smile at Stensland’s searing blush. He’s not expecting the order, or for Stensland to take matters into his own hands. But he allows this because it’s Stensland’s birthday, the whole exchange like a gift only he can bestow so generously. 

“All right,” Clyde concedes. “All right now. I’ll give you what you want, darlin’.”

“And I don’t want you to be careful!” Stensland says, agitated. “Just — _please._ ” He grips Clyde’s forearms. “Please,” he repeats. 

“I know,” Clyde says, then takes Stensland’s hand and squeezes it. He kisses Stensland, then, tipping his chin up carefully with two fingers, pressing his nose to the soft valley of his chest, taking a nipple between his teeth but not biting down. He’s good with his mouth, sucking kisses into Stensland’s skin which are sure to leave a mark. He plucks at Stensland’s nipples when untended by his mouth. 

Stensland wishes, not for the first time, that they were good out of bed as they were in it, attentive to each other’s needs and sensitive to every cue.

Stensland rides him, huffing in Clyde’s ear, making the bed springs protest with his eagerness, acutely aware of the hand Clyde uses to push his arse even lower around his cock. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Stensland hisses. “ _Ah—ah — yes, so good!_ ”

Stensland comes, crying out, arse spasming around Clyde’s cock. He lets Clyde settle him onto his back so Clyde can fuck him that way, tucks his knees up for Clyde to enter him in a deep rolling thrust. Stensland arches his back when he feels the silky rush of come fill him, kicks his heels up against Clyde’s sides to goad him forward, deeper still. He bites his lip as Clyde empties himself, makes a small noise of surprise when he feels the shape of Clyde’s knot start to throb. He loves the feeling of Clyde coming inside him, how full it makes him feel afterwards, and complete, but Clyde’s knot is something he’s only learning to get used to; no one told him this part was going to feel a little weird. Then there’s the waiting, _again_ , for the knot to flag down. 

“I’m all right, it doesn’t hurt,” he assures Clyde, curling his hands on his shoulders. 

Clyde grunts, easing the both of them into a more comfortable position, with Stensland on top so the next few minutes will be easier on his back.

“How old are you,” Clyde asks, in the ensuing silence.

Stensland blinks muggy eyes and stares at him. _Did you not read my papers_ , he wants to say, _before I got here at all?_ _The agency sent you my information. You should know the date I was born, that I’m allergic to peanuts, the name of my village_. _The agency had sent pictures. I had someone write you a letter where I told you all these things._ “Twenty seven,” he answers and his mouth flattens because he can’t help himself. He turns his head away, staring blankly at the wall, stiffens when Clyde starts playing with his hair. 

Stensland bats at his roving hand, scowls when Clyde looks at him questioningly. He holds Clyde’s stare, daring him to say something, anything to unloosen the coil of tension Stensland feels budding in his shoulders, the band of heaviness behind his eyes. He wants to cry. He wants to leave the bed, this room, this house, this whole country where he’s never felt more alone.

“Don’t touch my hair,” Stensland says, because he knows how much Clyde likes it, and wants so badly to take something from him. 

Clyde had called it beautiful a number of times, had said he had never seen anything like it before, such bright red hair like fire. 

Slowly, Clyde drops his hand. A frown mars his face but he says nothing because he never does. 

*

Spring comes, and Stensland drags a pair of boots from the hallway closet and starts digging in the backyard. Clyde’s property is endless. The house is built in the middle of a sprawling acre of land, woods behind it, dark and terrifying at night, but during the day lying quiet and unthreatening, filled with birdsong. 

Stensland hauls little rocks from his little garden plot, once he works his way through his seemingly endless list of mundane tasks around the house. He has no idea how to start a garden and had been too embarrassed to ask Clyde to help him read the labels on the pouches of seeds he’d bought from their earlier jaunt in town. Stensland couldn’t remember which seeds grew what, and asking Clyde would be admitting defeat so he does it all by himself, building flowerbeds which he overflows with water and leaves vulnerable to pests. 

It’s a mess, but he’s grateful for the ache in his arms at the end of the day, for the hours of time it whittles down until he has to make Clyde’s dinner of thick beef stew, cutting the bread Clyde brings home fresh from the bakery, making sure the table is ready, another menial task.

Sometimes Clyde brings home a plate of pie, or a loaf of sweet bread, or a jar of sweet summer plums, which Stensland eats by the spoonful whenever Clyde is away at the farm, watching the breeze work through the linen he’d hung on the washing line and rustle the leaves overhead, a grander way of how he used to sigh when Clyde kissed him good morning, back when Stensland had made himself believe he could be happy living like this, married to a stranger, used to breed a child. He scrapes the bottom of the jar with the spoon, leaving it out on the back porch. 

When he comes back outside to reel the linen in, ants have gathered around the spoon in a little circle. He brushes them off with a palm, and yelps when one bites him. Later while making dinner, he scratches absently at his arm, marveling at the risen welt. 

*

Stensland’s garden doesn’t grow, in the weeks following. He tries everything: more water, then less, pulling at the weeds surrounding the flowerbeds, killing bugs with a concoction made from onion, garlic and half a bottle of vinegar. Nothing is working. He sits out on the back porch, in a sullen mood, which pervades him for the rest of the day and seeps into his scutwork, when he mends the tears in Clyde’s clothes with aching hands, pricking himself with his needle time and time again, or when he boils water to soften the meat for dinner and almost drops the pot. He hates it, but most of all he hates himself for putting in so much work and having it amount to nothing. He’s certain he’s done something wrong, but also adamant about the fact he’d rather figure it out on his own. He doesn’t need Clyde’s help; he doesn’t need his sympathy. 

Clyde notices his dour mood but doesn’t ask, and when it’s time for bed, glances at Stensland over his shoulder as he climbs under the covers. Stensland remains on his side with his palms folded together. He hasn’t prayed in years so his evening rituals have been shorter: dressing for bed, combing his hair, sometimes washing depending on his mood or if they have enough hot water for it. 

Clyde reaches over and presses a kiss to his temple but lingers long enough to make Stensland look at him. Stensland waits for Clyde to say something, but when Clyde does, it’s just to say good night. 

Stensland says, “good night,” and turns on his side to give him his back.

*

Stensland answers the door to Mellie’s grinning face. She’s Clyde’s younger sister, a beta without a husband, who swoops in with a fierce embrace before shoving her way through the house. She’s come to visit, armed with a basket of goods: bread and jam from the bakery, the kind that Clyde likes, new curtains for the den, little mittens she’d knitted herself, for the baby Stensland wonders will ever materialize. 

Still she’s kind to him, and makes him laugh though she seems to ask about her brother an awful lot, prying information from him in dribs and drabs. Stensland almost doesn’t notice until she casually remarks on how it’s been a year since the wedding, and still: they have no children. She asks him if they fight, a pause in the conversation. 

“He just seems quiet lately,” she tells him as she pours the tea, “More so than usual. You can tell me anything, of course. Won’t say a peep, promise.”

Stensland tells her nothing. Stensland doesn’t trust her not to betray him though he knows Mellie will end up doing it without meaning to, casually bringing up whatever flaw Stensland sees in Clyde into a conversation with him, thinking she’s helping them and bringing them closer.

Stensland shows her the garden at least, a minor concession, pointing to where he plans to grow tomatoes and a row of cabbages. It’s nothing to look at at the moment: just overturned earth and waterlogged peat and Mellie hums, her hands on her hips as she surveys his little plot.

“I have no idea what I’m doing if I’m being honest,” Stensland admits, feeling embarrassed by his lack of knowledge. He watches Mellie dig the point of her shoe into the soil, peering at the tiny bulbs growing feebly between drifts of weeds he’d lost interest pulling out. He feels helpless, standing there, dumb, unaccomplished. He wonders what she thinks of him, what Jim thinks of him too: an immigrant who couldn’t read, who bore their brother no children, and infected Clyde with his misery. And still he was unhappy even though Clyde provided for him, everything he could ever want. His da had been right about him all along: his greed would kill him.

“We used to have a little garden, back at the old house,” Mellie says, crouching down on the dirt, hitching her skirts over her knees. “A big one, with lots of growing things. I loved it, as a child. My brothers and I would take turns watering all the flowers. You should ask Clyde to help you. He may be missing a hand but, he’s good for some things. Knows a thing or two.” She winks, and Stensland blushes without knowing why. He helps her up the porch, invites her to stay for dinner. 

She accepts and slices up the bread, portioning the stew generously. She tells Stensland a story while they wait for Clyde to come home, leaning over the boiling stew with her hair neatened into a bun.

She begins with their childhood, talks about Clyde, who is three years older and had always worn his hair long, who is slow to anger but quick to rise to a fistfight if someone threatened his family. He had wanted to become a farmer, just like their daddy, but worked in the mines after the terms of his inheritance had been set: marriage first, and then a child and then the house and farm would be his, not Jim’s who, although was the first son, had been born a beta.

She cuts herself off at the sound at the door, and they scramble off the sofa, Stensland to answer the door, Mellie to straighten her dress, ruffled from all the sitting around and cooking. 

It’s Clyde, who leans forward to press a stiff kiss to Stensland’s cheek as soon as he enters, one hand grazing Stensland’s hip. He smells like he always does, at the end of a long day, laced with sweat. “I’m home,” he announces, a streak of dirt across his cheek. 

“Yes,” Stensland agrees. “Welcome back.” He rubs at Clyde’s cheek, and Clyde hangs up his coat as per his routine before sniffing the air and sighing in contentment. 

“What’s for dinner?” he asks. 

Stensland gives him a long look. He makes the same thing every night because it’s the only meal he knows how to cook so Clyde shouldn’t even be asking him that question. Clyde had taught him how to make the meat tender, how to season it with salt, how to ratio the vegetables, three potatoes to one carrot, to bring out the flavour, after Stensland had made him his first disastrous dinner that gave them both a terrible stomach ache. 

Stensland can clean and scrub down windows and mend clothing to the best of his abilities, but cooking has always eluded him and he hates doing it because it reminds him of his mam. It’s a small sacrifice to make in exchange for a roof over his head, a warm bed, so he doesn’t complain and just does it, the same way he does anything these days, because it’s expected of him as an omega.

Mellie emerges from the kitchen, choosing to make her presence known before Stensland can give a cutting reply, as if sensing the sudden tension in the room. 

“Clyde!” she beams, her arms outstretched. “Come here and give your little sister a hug!”

*

Clyde shows him later what he’d brought home from the market that day: candy wrapped in translucent paper, fashioned into the shape of little animals. Stensland hasn’t had candy in years, had been too poor to waste money on sweets when he needed real food.

“It’s for you,” Clyde says, after Mellie goes home and it’s only the two of them in the living room, Clyde reading the paper aloud, Stensland just sitting there, listening to him because there’s not much else to do; he can’t knit, he can’t read, and he can’t clean when it’s evening time, doesn’t have a hobby outside of tending to a garden that doesn’t seem to want to thrive under his care and devotion. 

Clyde stops reading abruptly once he remembers he’d bought Stensland candy, digging into the right pocket of his well-worn coat and presenting him with the gift like an eager mutt.

Stensland stares at him, has been doing a lot of that lately that it almost borders on insolent, but he can’t stop himself and is unwilling to. He used to stare past Clyde’s shoulders, or at his shoes, a spot on the wall behind him, but now he looks at Clyde’s face all the time, notices the little creases around his eyes, the lines in his forehead that take longer to disappear, the spot he’d missed shaving and where he’d nicked himself once or twice with his razor. 

He stares at him, then, and echoes the look of shy embarrassment in Clyde’s earnest face. 

“You like sweets,” Clyde reminds him. “Here, take it.”

Stensland spreads his palms open and Clyde presses the tin into his hands, painted with fancy lettering on the cover. Inside, the tin is lined in translucent paper with ruffling at the edges.

“Take one,” Clyde prompts.  

Stensland does, fingers dancing across the pieces nestled comfortably in their ruffled beds. The candy is sweet and heavy, dissolving on Stensland’s tongue, shattering softly into pieces when he bites down with his teeth. He thinks he might cry; he’s never had candy this good before, candy he didn’t have to steal when the proprietor isn’t looking. 

“How is it?” Clyde asks, watching him still, hushed and expectant. He doesn’t blink.

Stensland licks his teeth, blushes when he presses another piece to his lips, greedy as always. “I like it,” he says, and bites down again with a crunch. “Thank you.”

Clyde nods, his features softening, the corners of his lips lifting into a tentative smile. He really is such a handsome man. Stensland should count himself lucky, that a man as good as Clyde, who was kind and provided for him, wanted to marry him and be his alpha. 

“Good,” Clyde says, nodding again. “That’s— _good._ ”

*

Clyde leaves for a few days, on a trip with Jim to sort out some business. Stensland doesn’t ask, though he does help him pack his bag, mending the tears in his favourite coat, wrapping bread and cheese in brown paper for Clyde to take with him in case he gets hungry. He’ll be gone for four days, three if all goes well, and Stensland will probably forget to clean the house in the meantime, idling his days in bed or watering his garden. 

Clyde is often gone for hours at a time; an empty house will be nothing new; Stensland used to be terrified of being left alone all day, every creak of the floorboard sending him spiraling into a fright. Now, he’s half looking forward to the reprieve though the thought of sleeping alone in the dark makes him worry for his safety.

“I’m leaving now,” Clyde says, at the door, slipping on his hat, carrying his bag.

“All right,” Stensland says. He wonders if he’s supposed to wish Clyde luck with whatever it is he’s supposed to be doing that warrants his absence. Stensland won’t, though. Not when he doesn’t even know where Clyde is going.

Clyde leans forward, intent on kissing Stensland on the mouth but Stensland won’t let him, gives Clyde his cheek instead, pressing a hand against Clyde’s chest when Clyde squeezes him in what he probably thinks passes off as an embrace. His breath reeks of coffee. He washed his hair this morning and Stensland can smell it too, an airy whiff of soap. He can see the delicate curl of Clyde’s ear, pale from behind a dark lock of hair. It’s an innocuous detail, but it stays with him even after Clyde relinquishes his grip, squeezing his forearms before letting him go. 

“Be good now,” Clyde tells him, a little awkwardly.  

Stensland shrugs. “Aren’t I always?”

Clyde hovers at the door, giving him another long lingering look, but doesn’t answer. “Goodbye,” he says. He doesn’t kiss Stensland again. 

Without Clyde, the bed is cold. Stensland notices it that first night, lying on his side of the bed with his back facing the wall. He thinks he hears stirring in the hallway, the ghost of a footstep. He doesn’t sleep. Morning seeps between the curtains, slicing light across the grey haze. He gets up and makes the bed, as always. Then he makes breakfast for himself, taking his coffee in the back porch, a plate in his lap. It’s well into spring, the air warm and damp, but he shivers at the first touch of a breeze ruffling his hair. Behind him, the house is still and quiet. He goes to clean the den.

The second night is even worse, sleeping in an empty bed. Stensland leaves all the doors locked, sits in bed with his knees folded, flipping through a myriad of old newspapers delivered to them daily that they sometimes used for kindling after Clyde has read through them. There are pictures, advertisements for this and that, an invention of some kind, someone’s prized pig. It helps pass the time. But still he is unable to summon asleep. 

When Clyde is around, Stensland often took comfort in the rhythm of his breathing, the familiar ebb and flow of him as he turned or snored in his sleep. They hardly talk before bed, only stared at the walls but once, Clyde had kissed him on the mouth, in a rare display of affection, a hand pressed against Stensland’s hip, right under the covers, his lips soft and seeking, wanting nothing in return but Stensland’s answering sigh; and they kissed and kissed until Clyde remembered himself and bid Stensland good night, and Stensland lay there in the dark with his heart in his throat, his mind reeling, his skin ready for Clyde’s touch, empty and waiting. Clyde can still surprise him, in these little moments. It’s a nice reminder of what he can be capable of. 

The next morning, Mellie comes to visit. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she says by way of greeting, kissing him on the cheek at the door. “Clyde told me I should check up on you. Are you doin’ all right? He should be back soon, don’t fret now.”

Stensland is not fretting. He can’t sleep, or concentrate much on anything, but he’s not fretting. 

“Do you miss him?” she asks Stensland later in the middle of a game of bridge, cards fanned over her skirts. They’ve been at it all afternoon, keeping themselves occupied by swapping stories from their childhood though mostly Stensland asks about Clyde’s: what he’d been like as a little boy, the origins of his scars if Mellie knew, if he was quiet all the time before the accident that took his hand, if he showed any indication of discontent in the recent days.

Stensland thinks about the question. “He’ll be back in a few days,” he settles on.

“But do you miss him,” Mellie presses. She waits for an answer. Stensland doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he misses Clyde because he has never missed a person before. He misses home, the stink of fish rolling in from the wharf, the nip in the breeze, Father Flanagan’s sermons which always seemed aptly directed at him, but it never occurs to him to go back. There’s nothing for him there, no hope or future. 

Stensland doesn’t know if he misses Clyde though he does think about him from time to time when he’s away at the farm, in the idle way he thinks of anything at all, absently and without any prompting; a thought that seems to insinuate itself no matter what time of day and has Stensland wondering what Clyde is doing, if he’s remembered to eat the lunch Stensland had packed, or if he noticed that his shirt has gotten untucked at the back again; what time he’d be home.

He doesn’t know if this means anything. Mellie leaves late in the afternoon, and Stensland is alone again with his thoughts as the house goes dark with the light of early evening. He picks up the cushion from where it’s fallen off the sofa, then clears out the mess of teacups and biscuit crumbs off the table.

That night, he pushes the closet doors open and runs his hands through all of Clyde’s clothes. He’s arranged them in gradients of light to dark, mostly because he’d been bored one day; Clyde has not complained since. Stensland places a shirt over Clyde’s side of the bed, pressing his face to the wool and breathing in its empty scent. He feels delirious, finding another shirt of Clyde’s by digging it out the bottom of the laundry basket; it’s the one he’d worn before he left, his scent faint with traces of sweat. 

Stensland falls asleep after using Clyde’s shirt as a makeshift blanket. In the morning, he’s ashamed of his own behaviour and resolves to do the laundry that’s starting to pile up before Clyde comes home. 

On the fourth day, things are easier though it’s also when Clyde elects to come home, announcing his return with a knock on the door. Stensland throws the door open and finds him standing there with his hat on, his bag at his feet. His hair is filthy and matted, his lips parted in surprise. He’s clutching a fistful of flowers in one hand and Stensland is instantly reminded of that day on the station platform over a year ago, Clyde scanning the crowd of people, searching for him, his face handsome even then.

When Clyde hands him the flowers, Stensland ignores them, in favour of pulling Clyde forward by the collar of his coat. Clyde kisses him, groaning, his stump pressing against the small of Stensland’s back, but Stensland doesn’t mind. He likes it, and is wet almost instantly, already embarrassing himself when he pushes himself against Clyde’s solid body, wrapping his arms around the breadth of Clyde’s shoulders. 

“Oh,” Clyde says, scenting him, glancing down. “Darlin’, you’re—”

“Yes,” Stensland says, daring him to continue. “I want you to fuck me.”

“I thought.” Clyde says. He licks his lips. Clyde shucks off his coat in the doorway, leaving it on the floor, then walks Stensland backwards into the den where he yanks Stensland’s trousers off and turns him around to face the opposite way. Stensland huffs a choppy breath through his teeth as Clyde’s hand starts tugging at his underwear. He’d leaked and made a mess of it, a wet spot staining the cotton dark. When they join his trousers in a pool around his ankles, he glances up at Clyde, over his shoulder, blinking. 

“I don’t,” he tries to explain, blushing, “I don’t touch myself. Not like—” He used to, he doesn’t say. “I — I get wet easily. And you’ve been away a while and you hardly ever— I’m sorry.”

“Stensland,” Clyde says, a sharp exhalation. “Darlin’, you shouldn’t be ashamed. You’re beautiful. It’s all right.” 

Clyde mouths at his neck, tracing the gaps of his ribs with his fingers, his nose touching the soft skin behind Stensland’s ear. He breathes in deep, shuddering, and Stensland can feel it reverberate within him, straight through his bones, making his spine sing.

“It’s all right,” Clyde says, voice low and hoarse. “It’s all right.” 

Stensland plants his feet apart, bracing himself against the wall, tilting his tailbone upwards and hitching his shirt above his hips. He pushes back against Clyde’s stiffening dick, squirms until Clyde thrusts forward in answer, still fully clothed, biting gently on his ear.

“Do it,” Stensland hisses, head drooping forward, chin tilted down, his face so red he doesn’t want Clyde to see it. “Fuck me this way.”

Clyde’s grip on his hip tightens. “Are you sure?”

“Yes!” Stensland cries out. “Fuck me, please!”

Clyde’s hand stutter but his movements are quick and efficient, his belt buckle hitting the floor followed by a rustle of clothing. He cups the swell of Stensland’s arse, rolling the pad of a finger against Stensland’s soppy hole, presses in until Stensland twitches, pushing out more slick. Stensland is so desperate for it, he’d fuck himself on Clyde’s stump if he could, and he grabs Clyde’s arm before Clyde can start fingering him. He hates this game, being made to wait for it. He’s waited long enough. He’d turned twenty-seven weeks ago, and wants to come again on Clyde’s cock.

“Please,” Stensland begs, voice thin and reedy. “Not your fingers. You know what I want. Clyde, please. _Husband_.” He starts to babble. 

Clyde concedes, sweet in the way he positions himself behind Stensland and pushes in, grunting as Stensland lowers himself onto his cock, the slide made easier by how wet he is, still leaking slick. Still, Clyde is big, and thick, and Stensland needs a few moments to compose himself, jerking back almost unconsciously so that Clyde is fully seated, making him yelp and exclaim, “oh, darlin’, sweet sweet darlin’,” as Stensland clenches reflexively around him.

Stensland laughs, but the amusement is short-lived once Clyde starts fucking him hard and fast, stripping his cock with one hand, making him whine wordlessly from the feel of it, sweat matting his shirt to his back as he pants and pants Clyde’s name.In the end, he comes first as always, spilling over Clyde’s fist, at almost the exact same time Clyde’s thrusts grind to a shuddering halt. Clyde comes inside him, and there it is, the heat of his spend filling Stensland up to brimming, then the thick shape of his knot plugging it all up. 

Stensland lets out a contented sigh, resting his forehead against the wall. Now comes the hard part: waiting for Clyde’s knot to settle. “Next time I want to be sitting,” he says.

“Sitting?” Clyde repeats, confused, but he sounds fond even as he says it, his nose pressed to the side of Stensland’s neck. 

“On you,” Stensland says. “On your lap.” He fights off a shiver, thinking of it. A flash of what that might be like: Clyde in his favourite chair while Stensland straddled him, Clyde’s hand on Stensland’s arse while he worked Stensland up and down his cock, urging him into a rhythm, the chair creaking in protest. 

“We could,” Clyde agrees. “If you want to.”

“I want to,” Stensland says. And then he asks, “Do you.”

Clyde sighs, breath fanning out, making the hair on Stensland’s arms shiver. “Course I do, Stensland, why wouldn’t I, I’m your husband,” he says tiredly. He nudges his hips forward, teasing him, making Stensland curse and jump, bat at his hand. 

“Did you bring me anything? Besides flowers?” Stensland says, changing the subject. He lets Clyde wrap an arm around him, spoon against his back. He’s big, muscle built from all the heavy-lifting he does at the farm though Stensland has yet to see him in action. Clyde has taken him to the farm only once, to see one of their prized cows give birth, a horrible experience he does not want to repeat.

“Didn’t think there’d be anything you’d want,” Clyde says. “But I did buy you more candy.”

“Same ones from before?”

“Hm mm sorta,” Clyde hums. “But these one are from out of town. Chocolate in them. Nougats. You’re not allergic, are you?”

“No,” Stensland says. “I’m only allergic to peanuts.”

“Well, then, good,” Clyde says, sounding relieved. “You can have some later. After, uh—” 

Stensland groans, realizing too late the error of his ways. They’ll have to stand like this until Clyde’s knot dies down and that will usually take another few minutes, which means they’re stuck like this in the meantime, joined arse to cock. 

“Anyway,” he says aloud, mostly to himself. Then he starts to laugh, shaking his head.

Clyde cottons on and he starts to laugh too, pressing his face to the back of Stensland’s head, touching his hair, breathing it all in. “I thought of you, you know,” he confesses later, when they’re stretched out on the bed and he’s fucking Stensland the way he likes, with Stensland on his back,and Stensland’s knees drawn up, the only way, Stensland sometimes thinks, Clyde has been indoctrinated to fuck. The proper way, the Catholic way, the good way; Father Flanagan would’ve approved. 

Clyde’s probably never read erotica before, or overheard drunken stories in an alehouse. He seems too earnest for it, and it shows in the way he touches Stensland, reverent as if he might still be pure. 

Clyde fucks Stensland, lazy and deep, kissing his brow bone, his cheek, stretching him out until a tremulous sigh escapes Stensland and he throws an arm over his overheated face, shielding his eyes. His thighs ache, but it’s a wonderful thing. He may sometimes hate Clyde for being so obtuse, for not telling him anything, for leaving for days without so much as an explanation of his whereabouts or his activities, but his body doesn’t, it never listens; one touch from Clyde is enough to fill Stensland with mindless lust, and his body wants him, it always wants him.

It makes sense then, that the words fall out of Stensland’s mouth before he has the opportunity reel them back in. “I want you,” he says slowly, needing Clyde to hear it, above the choppy drag of his breathing. “I want you to get me with child.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
